A slow movement of the eyes before the dizziness of the day is taking over. The clumsy beams of the Sun are rushing into the mirror on the wall and then bouncing back, leaving behind no more than a puddle of light. The birds are finding their melodies they lost during the night, starting the day-long duo with the rustling trees. A body on the bed, on the thin border between dream and reality, no longer asleep and not awake either. The released muscles that have soaked into the mattress are now dense, spreading the legs towards the edges of the bed, slightly tightening the skin: a gentle morning stretch. Thighs and calves, unconscious pieces of meat, animated by the crowded network of nerves but controlled by the mind, the warrior trapped at this very moment between sleep and being awake. The mirrors of the soul lead the way, the small vibrations of the eyelids are getting the eye ready for the welcoming of light. Once the eyes are open, everything will be easier—runs through the mind—just open the eyes and it will be good from then. Do not be afraid—murmurs the mouth as well—just open it.
The edges of the eyes slightly curve upwards starting to massage the temple, a gentle calling into life, as a spring breeze, imperceptible but making the body shiver for a short second. The head is adjusting slightly, turning itself towards the sunshine, the strongest yet most patient ‘waker.’ The unpleasant cry of the alarm went off and was immediately silenced about a minute ago by a quick but fine-tuned tap, taming the screaming device for another four minutes.—Glad that we have an option these days, easier to silence than a rooster—appears a bubbly thought at the frame of reality, tickling the muscles of the jaw into a timid smile. — There is the phone — the eye catches the gently dimmed screen — within reach. But the ever-reducing numbers on the screen, a countback predicting an end to come is not enough: the arm remains motionless. — Hurry up — the eye is vividly rolling under the closed eyelids but a sudden brain-buzz stops it. — There is time — a relaxing shock of nerv-passed electricity — there is all the time needed.
The left hand reaches under the blanket, slowly following the form of the left leg until the middle of the thigh like a sledge sliding down on the small bumps of the mountain side, and starts scraping it with slow, circular movements of the fingers. The palm closes, diving the fingertips into the flesh, evoking several itching grooves, pools of pleasant pain where the nails deform the skin. It is impossible to tell what was earlier: the itching or the scraping as they melt into a perpetual process, one causing and being caused by the other. The slowly moving muscles of the wrist tighten the lower arm, warming up the elbow, rising and sinking the biceps as if it would breathe. But the arm, which is at this point rather a motionless thin web of human fabric, resists doing its job, even lazy to pass on the nervous shiver till the fingertips, a desperate attempt of the mind to reanimate it. Yet, the joints in the shoulders, as rusty hinges, are popping and cracking. The neck is stiff as a chimney, not bending but rather leaving the head to fall towards the edge of the pillow and glance at the phone’s vibrating screen.
Three minutes and fifty seconds left.
Waking up is a paradox—jumps a surprisingly fit thought forward—it is a challenge to make the body move, to fight restlessly and brutally with the early awareness of the mind against the fortress of the body. The consciousness as a stream conquers from bone to bone, from joint to joint, back every part, spreading the joyful reminder of the fact of being alive. Sleep is like death, say many religions. When one is sleeping, the soul is taken and is only given back in the morning, through this pulsation of the conscious. Waking up is a happy-sad occasion, a departure from a non-existing life of possibilities and an arrival to an existing life of limitations. But this is enough! — the mind censors itself so that the whole face distorts into a painful grimace—thinking is worse than getting rid of the pillow, kicking the blanket to the ground, pushing the body away from the mattress and leaving the undreamed dreams behind. The vivid rush of thoughts dissipates into one, major duel: to wake up or not to wake up. The previously dashing mind is stretching the nerves after the thinking-sprint, while the body soaks into the bed, dragging the protesting, semi-aware mind with itself. The rusty voice of conscience attempts to wake yet it is becoming less distinct from the other murmurs, finally getting lost in the crowd of other mind sounds.
Three minutes and twelve seconds left.
The gate of sleeping is getting closer again. The half-open eyelids close, but the eyes are chasing the last reflections of the outside world, shining through the thin layer of skin. With the growing darkness, the impressions of the outer world slightly shift to the projections of the inner world. Now the arms revolt, they hover over the body trying to bounce it out from its comfortable position which becomes a clumsy self-hug as the heavy arms fall back to the two sides. The legs slightly bent, first just so the toes get back under the blanket, but as tiredness like drought swipes through the body, the legs slowly curl up, nearly reaching the chin. With each inhale, the breath deepens as the heart adjusts the speed of its beats to the dreamy state, like a royal drummer announcing the arrival of the new emperor. The dutiful part of mind, the last unbribed guard takes up the fight against itself. The incredibly complex structure of meat and bones and nerves and hair and cells and muscles, the whole body reanimates for a second, the arms stretch to the side while the legs straighten, the head slightly raises and slowly turns around, the nose drawing a deep valley into the pillow moving bit by bit in the resisting material. Heat travelling up, through the nose to the forehead feeling like a warm gel, first covering the head, then wrapping the whole cold, curled up body. The new dream as a pile of stones falls down, hammering into a new-conscious state.
Two minutes and forty five seconds left.
The scene is somehow familiar, a cottage in the middle of nowhere, hugged by man-size wheat from east, west and south and with a little garden that stretches under the shadow of the forest on the north. Nobody is to be seen or heard, only the intimate whisper of the wind and the wheat-stalks, yet I know that I have been here before. The sky is blue, the kind of summer blue that always makes me happy even if there is no obvious reason for that. The gently moving air carries the smell of fresh herbs and I feel strong and potent. I can do it. I am finally free! The grass, still mildly damp from the kind of dawn dew that can easily mislead the walker unfamiliar with the nature of it, rustles under my feet. My great- grandfather told me that even though the dew seems neglectable, it can find any little holes and get through many materials surprisingly quickly. My shoes, little puddles in which the feet continuously splash, prove he was right. Step after splash. The sun—already at the middle of the sky—radiating, every beam cleaving paths into the wheat, routes of silvery swamps glimmering in the sunshine. I get lost in the endless criss-crossing, following a hardly describable symmetry, as if somebody had tried to draw long parallel lines without a ruler. A new intersection again. A labyrinth, no clear way to go, a turn to the right, a glance to the left. Dead end. The orange sun runs through the ears of wheat until it reaches and passes through me. The afternoon breeze outside, the warmth of sun inside. The cottage gets closer, yet the thicket wheat does not become any thinner. A wall. My hands are splitting the wall, leading the way as the sun slowly descends. It is time to go home to that cottage, it is time to have dinner and it is time to rest. I am cold. I am nearly there. Just a few steps but I run and can barely see. My arm, an arm is reaching towards the handle, a palm ready to grasp, fingers ready to close. The thin air in the closed palm, the cold of ice in the fingertips. It is smooth, it is cold, and something is written on it. A weak beam of light, transforming black numbers on a white background, an alarm. My alarm.
Two minutes and ten seconds left.
The deep breath fills the veins with clean oxygen, urging the blood to circulate faster, reaching to the furthest points of the toes. Everything feels so cold, unbearably cold that had only been realized now as the warmth of blood is dashing through the icy body parts. The legs are heavy, as the day-long journey on the field exhausted them. The fist still tightly closed, clinging to the edge of the blanket, a shield against the earlier gentle, now harshly scanning sunshine on the blanket as the morning breeze drags the curtain front of the slightly open window. A beam targets the eyes, sudden light and a slowly arriving arm falling on the forehead, covering my eyes. Where is my dream? Only the stones remained, soaked into my body. What did I become, a breathing statue? Deep breath, I wish to take a deep breath but the thick cotton of the pyjama covers my mouth and nose. Less air, less oxygen, slower heart, foggy mind, stone body. Through the mist, the mind senses the danger, an undefinable threat but it has no time to warn. A binding shock swipes through the body while the thoughtless mind is carried into a new unknown. The dizziness of falling arises as the wingy habitats of the stomach crash into each other, confused. A brisk darkness reveals a great surprise, an abandoned building on the other side of my window I never noticed before. A step and another step again, without obstacles. The stones are nowhere. What stones? Stones, on each other, building up this huge construction, this cage full of thick air. Empty window-frames—breath-in—missing walls—breath-out. Breath in—semi-built or already collapsed staircases between the levels—breath out. It is difficult. I am getting closer to a door, or rather just a frame supported only from above. An entrance that had been suspended. I want to laugh but I can only cough, my voice hoarse, my throat is an empty tube, my vocal cords rods of metal colliding to the wall of it. The outside is silent, I am echoing inwards. Chin towards the sky, this homogenous grey surface, mouth wide open, jaw dropped as in the choir, but I cannot sing, only swallow the thick air. A small window there, over there, on the top floor of the furthest building across! Like a frame hanging on the wall, framing a little square of the sun: shining unbearably for the eye. The field, the wheat, the maze, the dark again, a flesh back. This place is cold, unfriendly, even depressing and scarily empty. The window on the top level, I have to get up there and I can get up there. I am no longer a huge, breathing rock. The door is just across, a few steps. Approaching it, a dragging, magnetizing power is evoked, pushing and pulling me over the doorstep. A white mist, similarly blinding to darkness on the field is starting to gather at my feet. I am standing in a cloud, a wet hug around my ankles. I see poorly in this white senselessness. I can only orient myself towards the dim darker grey in the corners, where the meeting walls cast the shadow onto each other, corners that are also slowly soaking into the mist. My feet are swallowed by the mist but I try and I can still move. I close my eyes and immediately start to hear, to sense the sounds, vibrating through the ceiling. A few uncertain steps and the sounds become noisier, but another turn and they fade away. Step, listening, correction, new step. The mist is whirling faster, spinning around me and I spin with it. I feel a spreading dizziness that presses against my ears, unable to pop. Warm pain fills up my cheeks and I want to touch them, I want to bury them into my cold palms, but my fingertips burn my face. The eyes are straining in their skin-case, rolling around while the closed, protective eyelids vibrate with them. Cry bubbles out of my mouth, which pop and dissolve into nothingness. I am not flying but I am being flown, arms widely stretched, striking the air as wings of Icarus while the feet dive into some thick and fluid, weighting against this madly whirling substance. I kick myself away from it but I am destined to fall. The bouncy material overflows my ankle, a cold touch, and icy grasp. I curl down, trying to free my feet but my hands cannot find them. The whirl soaks my palms downward and inward as well as they attempt to reach towards each other but find nothing where they should meet. The sensation of the legs also evaporates as the murmur becomes noisier, and abrupted. The whirling is around the belly, a moment of dim pain and nausea followed by a pleasurable relief. The whole body is light beside the chest ruffling under the waves of breaths separated by drumbeats of the heart and the vibration of the sound. The body, a trembling string.
Breeze sweeps through, amplifying the murmur into one deep, cracking and shaking sound, as a nail clashing against on the guitar. The last snore, breathing out and the suffocating pyjama, draws a big circle in the air. The sleeve on the arm gently slights up, tickling it while the legs straighten and stretch towards the frame of the bed. A sudden warm-red breaks through the whirling whiteness, as the wind sweeps away the curtain, carrying the smell of flowers and letting the beams of sunshine into the little room. The departing dream as its last attempt tries to reanimate the field, the house, but the jaw stiffens as the side of the eye catches the screen. The number three slowly melts into two as the clumsy arm tries to hug the blanket around the phone, aiming to lead it towards the numb fingers but instead tossing it down towards the ground. A sharp bang and the painful bip following it. A harsh sound, a fright familiar yet never more bearable. Ears sharp, arms dense, legs steady. Every morning I decide to change the tone and yet, it is again, too late, a forced separation, an unspoken goodbye. The blanket slides down, the head rises, the muscles ready, the body well-rested. The dizziness of the day, dreams to an arm-length. A thin border. The mouth is gently flirting. — Just open your eyes—murmurs.